The Centre for Civic Education (CCE) is publishing the minutes of the sessions of departments and the General Assembly relating to calls for applications and candidates for membership in the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), covering a period of more than half a century – from 1973 to 2025.
CCE submitted a request to CANU for free access to information encompassing data on previous calls and candidates from the establishment of CANU through December 2025, as well as the minutes of departmental and General Assembly sessions related to those calls.
CANU delivered the requested documentation in printed form on 16 February 2026, including information on sessions and minutes from 1973 to 2022. CCE had previously obtained documentation related to the most recent call conducted in 2025. For reference, CANU was founded in 1971.
CCE considers this documentation to be a valuable testament not only to the history of CANU, but also to the broader social context, and is therefore making it available to the public in electronic format. We are confident that CANU’s archives contain other significant materials and hereby express our hope that they will be systematically digitised, which would facilitate the work of researchers and further open the institution to the public and future generations. This would also represent an important step toward strengthening the emancipatory role of CANU.
We note that the submitted documentation does not include the minutes of the most recent electoral General Assembly of CANU, held on 23 December 2025, although CCE had requested those records as well. The explanation provided was that the minutes have not yet been adopted, despite nearly two months having passed since the session was held. We eagerly await the completion and adoption of those minutes, as we believe they will be of considerable interest for analysis. At the same time, CCE is publishing the minutes of the departmental sessions that preceded the electoral General Assembly of CANU in December 2025, which had previously been delivered to us by CANU. As we have already pointed out, these minutes indicate that no discussion was conducted regarding potential candidates, while during the session of the Department of Natural Sciences, a legal interpretation of the relevant Rulebook was requested. We believe that the publication of this documentation contributes to the public interest and to the transparency of CANU’s work.
We call upon CANU to make these minutes available on its own website as well. CCE has further contributed to this process by scanning part of the materials that were not previously available in electronic form.
CCE will continue to monitor the work of CANU and to advocate for enhanced transparency and institutional accountability.
Sara Čabarkapa, Active Citizenship Programme Coordinator